Here's a picture of plans for a kite that that has a strong resemblance to
the "Stranger". For starters I will add remarks about building in this page, not
in the picture
This description is far from perfect. So if you've never built
a kite before ask a lot of questions before starting... Or read some books... Or
both...
!!Note!!:
The drawing as shown is NOT to scale, but the indicated
dimensions are correct !!
The result could look like my home built Wacko
On the plans are the sail sizes, so you have to allow for the seams at the
bottom and the sail connecting edges. There will be a tensioning line IN the
trailing edge seam, so don't close the TE seam while sewing it... The center
part can be made in one peace (just mirror the center piece part....)
The
spine is not in a tunnel, it just fits between nose dacron, the "T" connector
and a small velcro tunnel at the bottom (and it's at the backside of the
sail...). The LE tunnels are dacron (5 cm, folded). I used 2 * 82.5 cm RCF6
instead of 165 cm RCF6 to be able to fold the kite into a smaller
package...
There are dacron reinforcements at the "T" connector, at the
position the top spreader crosses the spine and at the places where the whiskers
meet the sail.
The standoff's size is an estimate, I guess you should measure
it when the kite is built. The standoff position is at the intersection of the
left and middle panel (in the drawing) at the 53.5 cm position...
The bridle
is an "inhaul" type of bridle, so the right half is shown.
Build it in Icarex
if you can!.....
Here are some remarks from some people who built one...
While you're at it you may like to add the following things where I varied from the plan to keep the same balance as mine etc. Noseweb, I used two layers of Dacron LE tape instead of seatbelt web. Next time I would use K42 rather than dacron for the leading edges too. Spars, Skyshark 3P throughout Fabric, Not actually Icarex but Dimension (I think) 1/2 oz polyester, almost the same but cost me less. LE curve, The stranger/wacko is actually pretty straight from nose to ferrule and curved from ferrule to nock. I wanted a wider nose with a bit of billow to get every ounce of lift (ref: Dave Lord's homepage for billows, James Ervin's Opinions on nosewidth in rec.kites). To achieve this I connected two 3P's with a ferrule and put a nock on each end then ran a line through the nocks and tightened the line to bow the spars. I then adjusted the line so the spars were a best fit through a few keypoints on the plan and drew along them to get the LE curve on my templates. As a result the top spreader needs to be longer to help bow the LE toward the nose. Get the size right with a bit of dowel first. My top spreader has about 4inches of Exel RCF6 inside because I didn't do a dry run with a dowel and had to cut and lengthen the top spreader. However the balance seems improved but it doesn't like to turtle now. Cheater line was HD bridle cord, I tried some 150lb Dyneema but with a kit this light it seemed to upset the balance. Weight - about 6 oz on my kitchen scales :) Wind range - If the leaves on the trees are _just_ shimmering it will fly without walking backwards very often. Top end is about 8-10 mph, then the spars begin to flex, the sail gets slack and gets noisy It will fly in no wind but it gets a bit unstable, but then I've had no previous experience of no wind flying, on the whole a little breeze is nice. FYI with the kite built this light make the top leg of the bridle 2cm longer and the lower 2cm shorter than that on your plan. Also use a cross bridle by running the inner leg to a point 110cm along the opposite spreader and make it longer so the pick up point stays in the same position that it would have been with the old bridle. Try one! it's quite nice now.
I have constructed an Icarex (framed with Avia 240) Wacko - but I considerably modified the bridling. I found the pick points way too much centered (as it is probably the case on the Stranger too, but I have not had the chance to see one here, they're rare on these shores) and if the kite flew very precisely, it was rather tough to execute some tricks (especially the slide). So, from 82 cm (the outer leg bridle measure), I first started by shorten it to 70 cm; then, I adjusted the upper bridle leg from 62 cm to 56 cm. As a result, the kite lost nothing of its precision, even with a slightly bigger rotation circle, but it stalls much easier and tricks better too (watch these slow and smooth double axels!!!), especially in very little winds. This is really a kite you do not want to stop flying. Happy winds!
Stranger bridle options:
This bridle made the kite generally snappier but it especially improved
flic flacs, flip flop/fountains (though I'm not too hot at fountains),
flat spins from a horizontal pass and multiple flat spins. On the, only
slightly, downside fades take a little more care to hold and those
killer stops dont back up quite as nicely as with the static bridle.
Because the turbo bridle pulls the nose in when driving, it's better
behaved in very low wind without lightening the bridle too.
The dimensions I used are
Upper LE
\
\390
\ 185
\_____/
/ \ All dim's in mm, measured between knots
/ \
/ 565 \ 600
/ \
Lower LE T Piece
I still like the laid back feel of the original bridle so I came up
with the following knotting scheme which allows me to adjust the bridle
without unknotting the yoke, and even to convert from turbo to static
bridle just by loosening the larks head at the left and sliding it over
the stopper knot up to the pickup point. I've since used it on the BoT
and Fusion too, it's never slipped yet.
Top LE Conn
\ |
\ X
\ _X_
Larks \ ____________________________|_|_|
Head _|_|_ | |
_|_|_|_|_XX_______________________|_|_
/ |_| |_| |_|_|
/ Fig8 Stop Knot \
/ \
/ \
Bottom LE Conn T
Hope you can understand my crap ascii art :-)
Ian Newham mailto:ian@helen.demon.co.uk